The flyscreen door slammed behind me. My feet dragged. I reached each arm into the jacket. Warm sleeves. Crumpled collar. Hands in pockets. Okay. I walked.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

… it was raining on Himmel Street when the world ended for Liesel Meminger. The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasn’t quite managed.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.

Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.

I have to say that although it broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there.

Please, trust me, I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.

Sometimes I just survive. But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

Hope is a tree of Life.

Christ! What are patterns for?

To change your life just accept and adjust. What else can you do?

Marriage is supposed to be a union between two equals who love and support each other, not a master-slave relationship in which the man commands a docile woman.

A man who refuses light will remain in the darkness even by the side of light!

If I could offer but one helpful hint to young Hoosiers hoping to better their odds for success in life, I would simply note the importance of thoughtful reading.

Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species.

Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use.

I struggle to come up to people and say what I think.

If you have any of these qualities... love, kindness, compassion, sincerity and truth in your heart.... you will always find your way home.